Brown to endorse MacLeod candidacy

Ontario Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod is facing a challenge in her bid to be the party’s candidate in Nepean in the 2018 election.

MacLeod, a popular MPP who has represented the area for 10 years, will have to face a challenge from Ottawa businessman Riven Zhang, who launched his campaign for the nomination on social media Sunday.

Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown has promised to hold open nominations, but there are signs that Zhang’s bid for the nomination is causing distress for Brown and MacLeod.

The normally media-friendly MacLeod has failed to respond to repeated requests for interviews, and Tamara Macgregor, Brown’s director of communications, took two days to respond to queries about Zhang’s stated desire to seek the nomination.

“The Party is running fair and open nominations,” Macgregor said in an email on Wednesday. “However, the Leader has endorsed MPP MacLeod and will support her and all of his incumbent caucus members.”

Zhang tweeted November 6 that he was seeking the Conservative candidacy for the new riding of Nepean. The riding was cut out of the old riding of Nepean-Carleton, currently held by MacLeod, because of rapid population growth.

An active member of the city’s Chinese community, Zhang is the co-founder and CEO of comefromChina.com and co-founder of Motion Pay technology Inc. – a third-party payment service aimed at making it easier for Canadian businesses to accept payments in Chinese yuan.

Zhang is also actively trying to recruit party members, using his Facebook and Twitter accounts to connect potential voters and direct them to the party’s membership site. Photos from the November 6 launch show Zhang flanked by more than fifty supporters.

A February 27 photo on his Facebook account shows him posing alongside prominent Ottawa Conservatives, including federal MP Pierre Poilievre and former cabinet minister John Baird.

Sources tell iPolitics Zhang’s intentions have not gone over well with MacLeod and other high ranking Conservative party backers – many of whom have personally called Brown to ask him to intervene.

MacLeod is known within Conservative circles for her strong support for rural Ontario and, more recently, for going public about her personal battle with depression.

First elected in 2006, MacLeod has held the riding of Nepean-Carleton since 2006. She’s been re-elected four times and is the youngest woman ever to be elected MPP for the Ontario PC party. Her online bio states she is also only the second woman to be elected as a Conservative in Ottawa.

She has held several key portfolios in Conservative shadow cabinets, including education, energy, revenue and now treasury board.

The Ottawa Citizen reported in March Brown publicly endorsed MacLeod during a speech at the party’s three-day convention in Ottawa.

Brown has said he is committed to ensuring the Conservative party embraces diversity as it works to expand its base in the lead-up to the 2018 provincial election.

The Ontario Conservatives came under fire in late October when the party decided to drop Michael Nowak in Carleton after he referred to rival nomination candidate Goldie Ghamari as “Muslim trash.”

That nomination race also saw the party reject as a candidate Jay Tysick, a former senior aide to Ottawa City Councillor Rick Chiarelli and now a managing partner of Faraday Partners. Tysick told iPolitics he had not been given a reason for the party’s rejection of his nomination bid, despite asking for one.

Ghamari, an international trade lawyer, won the nomination at a meeting on Nov. 5.